Battery storage gets competitive

It seems the convergence of environmental realities and the economics of renewables is finally escalating apace. While large-scale wind and solar farms have been the big focus of the last few years (and continue to be), large-scale battery storage has become ‘the next big thing’.

Globally and domestically, governments and corporations are rolling out big storage projects that will provide the missing link between renewable energy generation and grid stabilisation/meeting peak demand.

In a few months, Germany will accept delivery of Europe’s biggest battery—a 48 MW/50 MWh lithium-ion unit—that will help provide grid stability in the Jardelund region near the border with Denmark, which currently relies on intermittent wind power. In the USA, its largest battery storage facility, the 20 MW/80 MWh Pomona Energy Storage Facility in Southern California, opened in January this year. India’s first (10 MW) grid-scale battery storage system was also launched in January, and Bloomberg New Energy Finance is slating that 800 MW of storage could be commissioned by 2020.

In Australia, in the wake of South Australia’s recent ‘crisis’ of energy supply, a key response from the SA Government has been to support the construction (by winning tender, before year’s end) of a 100 MW battery —Australia’s largest to date—with $150 m from a renewable technology fund. There have been 90 expressions of interest from 10 countries. [Update: this tender has now been awarded.]

One of the companies competing, Australia’s Lyon Group, has said that, regardless of the outcome of the tender process, it will build a $1 b battery and solar farm—believed to be the world’s biggest—by the end of this year, in SA’s Riverland region: 3.4 million solar panels and 1.1 million batteries will generate 330 MW of electricity and provide 100 MW/400 MWh of battery storage (depending on configuration). The project is fully financed, with grid connection already well progressed. The company’s 120 MW solar/100 MW/200 MWh battery Kingfisher project in SA’s Roxby Downs is also due to start construction in September 2017, to be running by June 2018. A third smaller storage project of 20MW/80MWh is also being developed on Cape York.

The Victorian Government recently announced a $20 m tender, as part of its $25 m Storage Initiative, which calls for proposals detailing the construction of large-scale storage facilities in the state’s west. Applications close mid-June and, from the process, the government aims to deploy up to two projects that will provide at least 100 MWh of battery storage by January 2018.

The ACT’s Next Generation Storage Program is committed to providing around 36 MW of distributed battery storage, through subsidised residential batteries, which plans to see 5000 homes signed up by 2020. And in the Northern Territory, results of a tender for 5 MW of battery storage (the nation’s largest, until the SA and Vic announcements, above) are about to be released.

Feature image: A peek into the Pomona Energy Storage Facility; at 20 MW/80 MWh, currently the largest in the USA. Image: Pomona Energy Storage, courtesy AltaGas Ltd